Anyone who’s followed this blog knows about my ongoing struggle to bring together technology in education with the principles and ideals in support of global education. While in many ways it is a natural match as well as perhaps an inevitable contradiction, I’m always curious why we aren’t seeing more of the two coming together, or more aptly, ed tech supporting systems thinking and global perspectives. Today I’d like to highlight two brilliant examples and direct you on to the blog posts that describe them. First visit Jennifer Whiffin’s new blog at In Pursuit of Purpose where she details how she uses Kiva to teach 4th and 5th grade math. Then have a read of Phil Macoun’s guest blog post on TLITE Online. Here Phil has written about the Digiteen project. Kudos to Jennifer and Phil for their excellent work.
Author Archives: bgilgoff
Hey Teacher – Who are you?
This post is the result of several things I’ve been reading and listening to lately, starting with Dave Truss’ recent open letter to the Fraser Institute on Pair-a-dimes. 
I’ve always wished that I was more articulate and quicker at responding on my feet, but I’m learning to accept that I’m just not. Things need to stew. Dave calls writing blogs in this way “slow blogging” and I rather like that term, like cooking with a slow cooker. And often, for the very reason that I always need time to mull things over and listen to a lot of perspectives, I’ve shied away from appearing to take a political stance particularly with regard to my teaching. That isn’t to say that I haven’t taken those stances, only that my stance has usually been expressed more through my affiliations and my actions, or unfortunately most often, through my silence.
The ed tech blogging world is full of cries for change; Calls to get on board and “get with” the digital age; Advice for ways to engage this era of the digital student. I’ve often described myself as having one foot in that camp. My job involves teaching teachers to use technology, to help them learn to do this very thing. At the same time, my heart and passion is with the global education world, teaching for social justice if you will. There is always tension there for me, how much does the digital world and rapid growth in technology help us and how much is it distracting us from what we need to be paying attention to? In what ways are we making sure that the use of technology in schools is moving us towards more global perspective and a better, more socially just world. So personally my challenge becomes making the Venn Diagram in my head that is Social Justice in one circle and Teaching with Technology to engage in a digital world in the other, overlap more completely.
Then I read Claire Thompson’s latest blog post. She writes about seeing her students, good students, opting for easy courses and jumping through hoops instead of mucking about in the learning. And she says:
The system is also to blame. We often focus on “these are the courses you need to graduate”, “this is the minimum number of credits you need”, instead of “we have some wonderful courses that you’re really going to enjoy, learn a lot from, and serve you well in the future”. Maybe we need more inspiring courses.
At the end she asks what her readers think. I almost started to comment. I want to say yes, of course we need more inspiring courses. We need to not be teaching to the tests, to the FSAs or to our provincial exams. But as that comment was slowly formulating in my head I was considering all of the various confounding factors. I’m not actually anti-assessment or even anti-testing. I do understand the need and desire to have measures for comparing students particularly while we have limited spaces in our post secondary school systems. I honestly believe there is some content that must be taught. Truth be told, I’m actually a strong advocate of some form of our Planning 10 curriculum, of Physical education classes throughout high school, of Civics 11 and of Socials 11. I think Social Justice and Environmental Education courses should be mandatory or better, woven through all curriculum. Children should, I believe, be taught more than just basic skills of communicating, calculating and computing.
Yet another ingredient in the slower cooker that is my brain was the lovely, inquiring letter from a self-professed “confused and concerned new teacher” on the BCTF Social Justice list serve on February 2. She has given me permission to post it again here. She starts it with Hi Everyone,
I am not sure why the BCTF has to pass resolutions on issues such as the Palestinian situation, prostitution, or any other global issues. Is there a possibility that the BCTF is casting its nets too widely, and so concerns that are local to BC are not getting enough attention? While I am concerned about global issues and big questions like prostitution and polygamy, I am not sure I want my union dues paying for them to be debated and put forward as resolutions. Has the mandate gotten too big? Was it always this way in the BCTF or is this a recent development?
A great question I think, because as teachers we get asked some form of this question often and it is certainly one that has sparked some great explanations and further discussions on the list serve. It took courage to ask.
At the same time I’m preparing for my next class with my Learning and Teaching with Technology group and so rereading Brooksfield, S.D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco. We’re gearing up to explore what critical reflection is. Brookfield clearly defines critical reflection as being very different from the constant reflection that we teachers all do, because critical reflection is that which examines with our thinking, the power structures we operate in and the underlying assumptions we operate from. But the clincher for me, in terms of why we need to do this work comes in his argument for needing to engage in critical reflection to increase democratic trust.
What we do as teachers makes a difference in the world. In our classroom, students learn democratic or manipulative behavior. They learn whether independence of thought is really valued or whether everything depends on pleasing the teacher. They learn that success depends either on beating someone to the prize using every available advantage or on working collectively. Standing above the fray and saying that our practice is apolitical is not an option for a teacher. Even if we profess to have no political stance, and to be concerned with purely furthering inquiry into a discreet body of objective ideas or practices, what we do counts. The ways we encourage or inhibit students’ questions, the kind of reward systems we create, and the degree of concern we pay to students’ concerns all create a moral tone and a political culture. (pages 25-26)
So here I am, all these ideas poured into the stew, simmering away. Up until now I’ve cooked mostly for myself, always trying to get the right taste before I could serve it up. In this way trying to pretend that my stance appears apolitical, while knowing full well that it is not. I choose to engage with technology in my teaching because I believe in weaving social justice through the curriculum. I believe in bringing the learner’s world into the classroom and working to understand from the students’ perspectives as well as sharing my own. I choose to support our union in engaging in large global issue debates because the stances we take as individuals and as teachers as a group are what our students are really learning about. As Parker Palmer says in his 1998 book, The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of the teacher’s life (Jossey- Bass: San Francisco)
We teach who we are.
It follows then that we must strive to be the best that we can be, the most political that we can be, the most just (fair, full and open-minded), optimistic, engaged and involved that we can be. That is what our students will learn from us. That is what they will take with them into their own studies. When we see that not happening, when we see students striving for the minimum we need to turn to ourselves and ask what we are striving for ourselves.
Picture from jennifermackenziej on Flickr at http://bit.ly/zvpo
As things take off
SFU’s new Learning and Teaching with Technology Graduate Diploma Program started up in Coqulitlam, BC two weeks ago. What is truly different for me with this program is that while the teachers coming in to the program have a wide range of skills just like previous teachers in TLITE programs, this time they have all just dived right in. And the first dive is higher, with more bounce and flair than I’ve seen at the beginning of a program before.
Last night, in just the second class, James McConville presented on ‘Digital Learning Networks’. He covered a lot and challenged the teachers to start building an online network with a fairly comprehensive final assignment. It included
contribut[ing] to the human network [by] comment[ing] on 5 news articles, 5 blogs, and 5 other networks (twitter, facebook, etc.).
The teachers were then asked to summarize their experience and create a mind map such as the one David Warlick has done here, in his blog post The Technologies we Make. (Read about PLN’s in his post Networked Learning at Conferences and/or try his PLN Survey.)
What is curious for me is that the information James presented could be considered to be cutting edge. James had only recently attended the International Congress for School Effectiveness in Vancouver and so what he was talking about was current for him. It was new and exciting, connections he’d made at the conference and how that impacts his work. Yet this group of “new to the program teachers” weren’t out of their depth as a group. Sure, individuals picked up on different things: some joined Twitter on the spot, others busily signed up for a Google Reader account, a few were following along with the blog posts his slide show directed them to, while still others were setting up new Google Docs account for the next activity I had forewarned them about, and yes, some were wondering what was going on. But overall, these teachers were demonstrating something very exciting in the way they participated in the presentation, a kind of readiness for change. A readiness for change in how they learn and how they will teach. Immediately after James finished, one teacher excitedly told me
I’ve realized it’s not at all about the technology. It’s about me and about my learning.
That comment came through in an interesting way in the profile sheets that the students filled out after the first introductory class. For the most part they genuinely have enrolled in this program to gain a deeper understanding of how to effectively use the technology to enhance student learning in an informate manner, rather than simply to automate their teaching. The “what we know” and “what we hope to gain” Wordle art from this group is interesting to consider. In both cases the word technology was removed from the mix. In the first wordle it would have appeared 39 times, in the second 51.
What we Know:
What we hope to gain:
Seven Things You Don’t Know About Me
So I’ve been tagged for this “meme” blog by three of my fellow bloggers, Errin Gregory in Just A Thought , Heidi Hass Gable in Learning Conversations and Cindy Martin at the Blog Junkie. Most of you are already familiar with the drill, but in case you’re not, the idea is that I post seven things that readers wouldn’t know about me unless they read this blog. When I finish I tag seven more people. This “game” has lead me to expand my network as I’ve stumbed across other who have written and then followed their tags. I’ve loved the blogging journeys but have been slow to get this posted because I don’t believe in assigning homework as Dave Truss calls it and so after reading his blog decided to tag my seven (or more) this way: If you haven’t yet been tagged and would like to “play”, please tag yourself by adding a comment here linking to your blog. I’d love to read your list. You should also tag your blog post with the tag “meme”.
So, seven things:
1. I love animals but I live in pet free zone: When our last pet, a beautiful little Siamese cat, was taken by a coyote four years ago my husband declared our house a “pet free zone.” While I’m not proud nor thrilled with this status, I have to be grateful for his years of patience with the cats, fish, frogs, guinea pigs, and hamsters that I
brought home over the years that we had small children. I suspect the only pets he could really relate to and love were our big dog Anna and the last cat, Chimney. The pet free status stands only because he’s agreed to travel frequently while it lasts.
2. I am a certified scuba diver: I almost managed to dive off of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia three summers ago, but the whole time we were North in Queensland the winds wouldn’t let up and the boats were barely heading out. I haven’t done a lot of scuba diving but I’ve passed the certification course twice. I don’t have a lot of confidence in myself as a diver mostly because I’m terrified of meeting up with something half my size under the water. I would however still like to dive where there are turtles.
3. I come from a large family: I have three brothers and three sisters all with very differing political views. I have one sister and one brother who are both United Church ministers. My political views, though not my religious views, are most in line with theirs in that I believe politics should be driven by social justice. My family alone provides evidence for a greater need to find solutions to our expanding world population: two parents, seven children, 24 grandchildren, 21 greatgrandchildren so far and they are just getting started! The oldest grandchild just turned 40, but the youngest is only 9. At least 10 are still below 30 and not yet married.
5. I love to write: My secret (until now) ambition is to write more. Writing is not something I spend a lot of time at but when I do write, I thoroughly enjoy myself. I’d love to have the luxury of more time to play at writing creatively. My young adult son is beginning to explore that realm for himself and I’m delighted and perhaps even a little envious.
6. The turtles in my banner are from a picture I took in Mexico: I have loved all the time I’ve spent in Mexico and look forward to much, much more in the future. In fact, I’m working on learning Spanish. I don’t think I’m particularly good at learning languages and so living in Latin America in the future is really the only hope for me ever really being able to speak the language.
7. My dream assignment would be to teach in a one-to-one laptop classroom with an alternative focus on global citizenship: Need I say more? If you’d like to hire me to give it a try, just let me know!
I’ve been inspired again!
This whole holiday has been amazing. I’ve had time to read more new blogs and I’m having so much fun doing so. I’ve learned so much and just really begun making amazing connections. Blogging is truly an adventure.
I used to teach with an inspirational teacher, Karen Stewart. Karen taught all of the senior Humanities courses at the University Transition Program where I was the coordinator. She not only had my upmost respect, but she single handedly was responsible for truly turning more than one of the amazing highly academically gifted students in this special (Canada’s only) radical acceleration program who came in set on a life time of Math and Science, into English, Literature or History majors at university. But what I loved was having the opportunity to be outside with Karen. Now understand, I’m a hiker. I cycle, I power-walk, I swim and I even go to the gym. Karen doesn’t do these things in the same way. Being outside with Karen was always magical because I honestly believe that she sees the world through very different lenses than I do. On one trip to Bamfield there I was letting my more competitive staff take off on the West Coast Trail with the keeners, while Karen and I were left behind with the not-so-keeners, often the kids who hadn’t slept in tents before and so really didn’t want to hike at all, preferring hours and hours of being in their tents to being on any bit of the trail with us. We walked with Karen, up the steep start to the trail, and with her we saw the vines with different eyes. We laid down on the path and discovered frog eggs. We learned stories about cedar trees. I memorized a Shakespeare sonnet that I still remember to this day. Well, almost.
So what do blogging and Karen have in common? Wandering and talking with Karen was always a new adventure for me. She made me think about things differently. She questioned, ever so gently, what I thought I knew? She listened to and watched for everything around her? She encouraged me to open my eyes. I think she even helped me see the students in new ways. Reading blogs is like that too. Every one that I read, well almost each of the blogs, brings up a new little twist on something. I get asked to think about new things or old things in different ways.
Most recently, I stumbled upon Paul Bogush’s New Year’s blog, Blogush. He put out the following New Year’s challenge:
If you are an old time blogger please update your blogroll with all of those new blogs you found after your initial plunge into the 2.0 world. Nothing against the big guys, I was just looking for something fresh and new, and wanted to find people who were more like…well, me.
And he’s right. So, I’ve decided to take him up on it. I’m going to start mapping a little more of where I go and where I’ve been. I’m not an old time blogger, but I am going to regularly update my blogroll with what is new that I’ve come across. I’ll keep track of what I read that makes me want to remember that person and go back. Watch for updates. I’d encourage you to do the same.